So you think you can, erm, you know, present?

A couple of weeks ago I went to the BBC's Media Futures Conference. The best bit of the day by miles was Peter Day.

That's Peter over there, top left in the blue shirt and the cream trousers. There's a better picture here and his BBC biog is over here. But you all know who Peter Day is, right?

He didn't speak, he only chaired a session. But he was very well briefed, very well prepared and he spoke persuasively and intelligently. He had this great quote from Paul Saffo, "Just because something is inevitably going to happen, it doesn't mean it's going to happen any time soon".

What struck me most was how he never once said, err.

Granted, Peter Day is a professional broadcaster and he's been doing it for years and years, but still, he never once said "err". Not once. No umm's, no erm's, no you know's. I was so startled by this I counted erms and umms for the other speakers. On average (and my survey wasn't very scientific admittedly)  no speaker could get through one minute without and an erm or an umm or a you know.

I realise that dropping countless 'you knows' into a presentation is mainly a stylistic issue and in the right circumstances it can be effective, but more often than not it's just lazy. It's very easy in this industry to convince yourself that you're a good presenter when actually you're just average. Good speakers are people like Peter Day, Tony Blair or Winston Churchill. As Jon Steel points out in his brilliant book (you have read that book haven't you?) Winston never needed any PowerPoint to get his point across. Neither did Peter Day.

I know Blair and Churchill and the like are talking about much more important things than the difference between Arial and Helvetica, but even your local MP could stand up for 45 minutes and give a competent speech about the local door knob society. No notes, no PowerPoint, no erms. John Dodds once saw Seth Godin stand on a char (in the middle of Buckingham Palace or somewhere) and talk about funny coloured cows for nearly an hour. Could you do that?

Next time you speak, try and do it without any erms.

Comments

[Mike Reed]

One of the highlights of my student years was seeing Dickie Attenborough, introducing a showing of Cry Freedom at my University, UEA. He just got up and spoke, for a good half hour I reckon, and if he said 'Um' or 'Er', I don't remember it. I do remember thinking, 'He hasn't said "Um" or "Er" once.'

He didn't just talk about the film, he spoke eloquently and passionately - without notes - about cinema, its duty to entertain and its potential to do vastly more. He did it in beautiful, clear, rather luvvy-ish English. And he had the auditorium, as they say, in the palm of his hand. The film was very good, but Dickie was better. (I remember it more clearly than any lecture I went to.)

[Will]

Erm, I know I can't. Annoying. But it'll come..

[John]

That was a long day wasn't it?

As much as I love the image of a servile char being stood upon, I have to say it wasn't quite as you recall. It was more of a couchette in a tex-mex bistro (Buck House won't admit scientology minders after all) and I don't think purple cows had been invented by then.